FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ALLEGANY COUNTY - PAGE 3

The night of Oct. 26, the town of Frostburg threw its annual Halloween warm-up parade. School bands, cheerleaders and volunteer firefighters snaked down Main Street. Local politicians rode in pickup trucks, tossing candy into the crowd, talking sweet talk to one another. "See you at the polls November 7th!" shouted Mike Wade, a write-in candidate for the Allegany Board of County Commissioners. Frostburg State University students turned part of a municipal building into a haunted house for kids.

CUMBERLAND - The textile factory closed in 1983, the tire plant in 1987. By the early 1990s, the glass company that once employed 1,300 moved its final 50 jobs out of town. When word came recently that a cabinet manufacturer would bring 500 jobs to Allegany County, the biggest new opportunity in a generation, some residents didn't believe it until the steel skeleton of the plant began rising in a field where cattle once grazed in the shadow of the ever-present mountains. Then the floodgates opened.

CUMBERLAND -- Slot machine gambling is against the law in most parts of Maryland, but you would never know it here.Throughout Allegany County, bars, restaurants and fraternal clubs feature video poker machines that produce cash payouts for lucky players. The machines bear signs "For Amusement Only," but everyone knows that winners can collect their money -- anywhere from $10 to $300 or more -- at the bar.Such illegal electronic gambling is not unique to the county and can be found in many spots across the state.

HOUSE SPEAKER Casper R. Taylor Jr., who needs all the friends he can get these days, has found one in Gov. Parris N. Glendening. Taylor has come under fire in his hometown, Cumberland, for his role in a controversy about school closings. He was the subject of an effusive testimonial by the governor last week in a letter to the Cumberland Times-News. Praising his fellow Democrat's "character and integrity," Glendening defended Taylor against rumors that he had "sold" his vote on the governor's gun-safety bill for $1 million to stave off school closings in Allegany County.

A 15-year-old girl from Allegany County has died after being struck by a car Tuesday along Coastal Highway in Ocean City , police said Wednesday. The driver of the car that struck her, a 17-year-old boy from Worcester County, was not charged and was released by police at the scene. Neither have been identified due to their ages, police said. Police first responded to the intersection of Coastal Highway and 21st Street about 5:45 p.m. for reports of a pedestrian struck by a vehicle.

An Allegany County jury has convicted an inmate at Western Correctional Institution in the fatal beating of his cellmate. Corgiss Ross, 45, was found guilty in the November 2012 murder of Malcolm Jerrod "Rod" Pridget, a prosecutor said Monday. Pridget was taken from the maximum-security Cumberland prison to a local hospital and then to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where he died of his injuries. Pridget, 19, was serving concurrent 18-month sentences on a drug conviction and probation violation.

By Thom Loverro and Thom Loverro,Western Maryland Bureau of The Sun | March 28, 1991

Sandra Kay Beeman, the former Allegany County Jail guard accused of helping her lover and another inmate to escape from the jail last year, was convicted yesterday of escape charges in Allegany County Circuit Court.Beeman, 47, entered an Alford plea, which means she did not admit guilt but conceded that a conviction would result if state's evidence were presented at trial. She faces up to 10 years in prison.The former jail guard was charged with helping Edgar Eugene Kerns, 30, and James Vernon Barnes, 35, to escape in the early morning Aug. 29. Beeman, who had worked at the jail for 10 years, has publicly admitted a romantic relationship with Kerns, who was awaiting sentencing on bad check charges when the escape took place.

CUMBERLAND - Heroin did not come quietly to the sleepy towns and dusty back roads of Allegany County. Over two months last year, the drug took two of the Western Maryland county's young - a 19-year-old man found dead in a portable toilet at a construction site and a 17-year-old high school sophomore with enough heroin in her veins to stop her heart. By year's end, at least six people would die from an overdose of heroin or methadone, a synthetic narcotic used to treat opiate addiction.

On Page 13 of today's Sun Magazine, the person pictured is not "Miss Annie" Bellinger but "Miss Minnie" Piper, a bridge tender in Oldtown, Allegany County. Above is a photo of "Miss Annie" Bellinger.L On Page 8 of the Magazine, Leon Summers' name is misspelled.The Sun regrets the errors.